SPA's new season

Society for the Performing Arts dazzles with diverse 2019 lineup

The Society for the Performing Arts has recently announced its 2019-2020 season, and it is certainly a high-calibre list of who’s-who performers. It’s quite the power lineup from Houston's leading, multidisciplinary, performing-arts presenter, which has been around for over 50 years.

“Throughout the season, we celebrate extraordinary artistic collaborations and inspirational artists,” says Meg Booth, SPA’s new CEO. “We’re proud to present many Houston debuts as we continue to introduce the next generation of virtuosic artists.”

Here is a rundown of who and what will be performing at either Jones Hall, Cullen Theater, Zilkha Hall, and Miller Outdoor Theatre.

Drama, drums, and high-flying spectacle
Of course, SPA will offer up some serious Broadway fare. The Tony-winning musical version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple (January 3-4) will come to Houston in an all-new revitalized production, and STOMP (January 23-25) will celebrate 25 years of being in NYC with an inventive and invigorating stage show.

Internationally acclaimed percussion crew Drum TAO (March 27) returns to SPA with a new modern, high-energy show that showcases the ancient art of Japanese drumming, while The Peking Acrobats (February 22), a troupe of China’s most gifted tumblers, contortionists, jugglers, cyclists, and gymnasts, will mesmerize folks with their death-defying antics.

SPA will also have Chicago-based Manual Cinema performing, for the first time in Houston, with its multimedia production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (October 30). Handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music will be used to create an immersive visual retelling of the monster story for the stage and screen.

Divine dance
A host of shows will wow audiences with the art of dance this season. MacArthur “genius” Kyle Abraham and A.I.M (Abraham in Motion), his phenomenal contemporary dance company in their Houston debut, will perform the world premiere of An Untitled Love (June 4-5), SPA’s first commission in five years.

Bon Iver & TU Dance will come through with Come Through (February 20-21), a fusion of contemporary dance and brand-new music, performed live by Bon Iver. Martha Graham Dance Company (October 18) returns to Houston for the first time in 15 years, performing Chronicle and other works from The EVE Project, which celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

And Mark Morris Dance Group will present Pepperland (January 30-31), a unique tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Much music
This season's Music Series has a diverse collection of heavy hitters. The whole season kicks off with legendary, eccentric actor Jeff Goldblum performing jazz standards with his band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra (September 20).

Latin Grammy winner Lila Downs (March 6) will be singing songs in Spanish, English, and the languages of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, and Mahuati cultures. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will give us French Enchantment (January 16), a program that begins and ends with early works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré.

The Brubeck Brothers Quartet (May 16) will honor the centennial of their iconic father, Dave Brubeck, and Black Violin (April 7) will come with an electrifying mix of hip hop and classical music. And let's not forget that Broadway legend Bernadette Peters (November 2) will show up and woo the crowd for an evening.

Serious laughs
SPA will also bring in some funny people. Former Tonight Show host and recent John Oliver target Jay Leno (December 6) will be in town for a show. TV vets Jane Lynch (Glee) and Kate Flannery (The Office) will team up for Two Lost Souls (November 8), their comedy/cabaret show. Longtime Carol Burnett cohort Vicki Lawrence will do Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show (May 8) for Mother's Day weekend.

And for all y'all who love straight-up witty folk, famed author and essayist David Sedaris (November 1) will be discussing his latest book, Calypso.

Kids only
There will be several, elaborate shows in store for the kiddies. Wild Kratts LIVE 2.0 - Activate Creature Power! (January 26), the theatrical production based on the Emmy-nominated PBS Kids series, will bring audiences along on a wild ride with a mix of live-action and animation.

After the whole fam has celebrated Christmas, y'all can check out Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical (December 26-27). And fresh off of Broadway, the award-winning The SpongeBob Musical (June 23-28) will make its Houston debut for eight shows, ending the season on a very fun note.

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For more information, tickets, and showtimes, visit the Society for the Performing Arts.

Come Through marries dance with music from Bon Iver.

Photo by Michael Slobodian

Come Through marries dance with music from Bon Iver.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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